Is YouTube Going Away?

On Saturday, June 23rd, 2018 at 2:59 pm, Wolfwood29 said:

That's nuts! I'd sure like to hear what the explanation for that is. I can understand them doing that to videos the staff doesn't like and hate videos but MIT and Blender seem pretty innocuous.

Well, YouTube has certainly gone away as of right now - although on a temporary basis.

It's interesting that one of the largest web sites on the Internet can experience an extended outage like this. It makes me wonder if this is a sign of things to come. Perhaps the site isn't as well-maintained on the back end as it once was. If that's the case, it's definitely a sign of things to come as it would indicate that Google / Alphabet does not prioritize the site in its budget. I wouldn't blame them.

It's likely they were testing something during that unexpected two-hour outage.

As long as Google's primary motive is to make money, YouTube will eventually have to be retired. If Google somehow wants to lose a lot of money to convert YouTube as an ideological platform, it may be re-purposed for that but it's not b***** likely.

Look at the YouTube TV subscription service. It's the only part of the site that has the potential to be profitable.

The monetization issue is probably going to be the catalyst. I can't see people investing the time and money to make videos (unless they are just starting out or are chronically unpopular... *ahem*) only to post them for free on YouTube.

Ad blockers aren't just used to cheat web sites out of money. They have become necessary due to security and device performance issues. I don't enjoy blocking ads but the last time I disabled my ad blocker, my web browser became very, very slow.

We're just going to have to start paying for content so the sites we patronize will have to be budgeted. Personally I don't find YouTube TV valuable so I just subscribe to stuff like VRV and Funimation (maybe Netflix at some point again in the future).

The Internet just isn't safe to allow ads so this is the only viable alternative I can imagine.

I think a paid subscription model will work out fine. It will also provide revenue for smaller sites to provide service and the Internet giants should lose their stranglehold on the web.

Many "news" sites are having serious financial troubles already. YouTube's on the rocks with its creators.

Just a matter of time now.

Enjoy the show.